28
I wake up to numbness.
I try to phase into the Quiet, but it doesn’t work.
Of course it doesn’t, I recall with a jolt. I’m Inert.
I open my eyes, find the room too bright, and close them again.
“I think he just blinked,” a voice says. The voice sounds a lot like Thomas’s.
“Darren, are you awake?” asks a soft, pleasant female voice that I instantly recognize as Mira’s.
I squint at them. Mira is sitting next to me on the bed. Her hand is on mine, but with all the warm numbness, I didn’t feel it until this moment. Her clothes are different. I think she’s wearing a man’s shirt, but by undoing a few of the top buttons, she’s definitely made it her own.
Thomas is sitting in a chair next to a bunch of hospital machines. His hands are bandaged, but he otherwise seems okay.
I open my ey
